Fitzroy was the geek of his time - he was rich enough to own 22 chronometers and he was interested in everything - (especially meteorology - hence the Shipping weather forecast zone called after his name and the Fitzroy Storm Glass) A 'normal' naval ship in those days carried three chronometers - the average of the two which showed the closest time was used to compute longitude
Best regards Kevin Karney Freedom Cottage, Llandogo, Monmouth NP25 4TP, Wales, UK 51° 44' N 2° 41' W Zone 0 + 44 1594 530 595 On 23 Jun 2011, at 09:51, Frank Evans wrote: > During Darwin's famous voyage aboard the "Beagle", Captain Fitzroy had 22 > chronometers aboard, no doubt to obtain accurate longitudes. This seems > pretty excessive and I'm wondering how many (or few) chronometers would have > reduced his time errors to an acceptable level. Any thoughts? Poisson > distribution, perhaps? > Frank 55N 1W > --------------------------------------------------- > https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial > --------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
